


Until the Sun Comes Up

by wirewrappedlily



Series: Afire Love [3]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M, Q may have been referencing GoT in his head, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 05:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2013612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Next time, let her break the bloody cover." He growled finally. "If we have to bloody Morse Code, I will make damn sure that you're okay."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until the Sun Comes Up

James Bond was lying on his front, arms crossed under him as he breathed slow and deep, ignoring the reflex to so much as twitch at the cold sweep of henna ink over his skin. A small, very Catholic French town was asleep under the stars outside; candles casting a gold glow through the small apartment that sat atop the chocolatrie. 

Anouk and her mother had lived there before Vianne had found Roux; then Anouk and Q, after Q's mother had left him on the steps of church, and no one else wanted to take in a child that could very well have died. It sat empty after Anouk's death, and Q had shown him all manner of things a child would have delighted in hiding. James had been mesmerized as Q had laughed and danced around the kitchens, cooking dinner and getting started on the next day's batches while he and the young daughter of the woman who'd taken over the business had talked in easy, flawless French. 

It'd been incredible to watch, but even more incredible was the end result. The food had been nothing short of orgasmic, and James had delighted in licking chocolate off of Q's hands after dessert, eating the rich cake off of his fingers and letting Q lick the taste of chocolate out of his mouth. 

A long bath and James had laid himself out for Q's attentions, perfectly at ease as Q had gently patted him dry, mouthing kisses over his shoulders before James finally growled to get him to begin. 

There was a Polaroid camera waiting on the bedside table so that James could see once Q was done; Q's laptop left in the flat and the digital's tiny screen useless for the kind of detail James knew he'd want to see. Q was stroking his fingers over the un-inked skin, idly easing detail, slow and delicate. 

James's breath caught as the ink trailed low, down slightly over his side; purposeful but a surprise for him. "Sorry," Q murmured, "Are you okay?" 

"I've got a gorgeous brunette straddling me, covered in candlelight; there's nothing better." 

"I'm not putting too much of my weight--" 

"No, Q; you're perfectly fine." James chuckled, "Don't stop now." 

"You'll tell me if you need me to stop?" 

James laughed once, "Yes, dear." 

Q pinched his waist, "I'm not nagging, James; I just...your health is in my hands." 

"Q, you barely weigh enough to dent a pillow." James growled, his displeasure at that coming through in his voice. "You couldn't hurt me unless you actually tried." 

Q paused, taking a deep breath, the heady smell of the ink softened with the sweetness of the chocolate he would smell of for days. "I like the way you tempered that statement." James grinned at the smile in Q's voice, sighing and closing his eyes as the gentle sweep of ink got lower on his back. 

"How is it that the people here just...accepted us?" James asked idly. 

"You mean, how is it that we're not being ostracized for being homosexual? The people of this town bowed down to Vianne and Anouk. The chaos they reigned on this town is still spoken of in whispers. So they welcome newcomers of all sorts, no matter who they are or the gender they love." Q's laughing voice was like warm honey to James, and he felt himself sink a little deeper into how severely he loved the man so intricately marking him. "Roux was a pirate. A gypsy, really. Like Vianne and Anouk, but he took his home with him wherever he went. Until, one night, one of the townspeople--Josephine's abusive ex-husband--set fire to the boats, with all the women and children still on board. Vianne had saved Josephine; and the sight of her, vivacious and happy on the deck of that pirate ship had driven him mad. He was never seen or heard from again--but Anouk told me, once, that when her mother had thought she was trapped in the flames, the anger and fear had been enough to curse him in the old way, and he would forever walk the world, unable to feel the cool wind on a hot day, or luxuriate in the taste of ambrosia." 

"Remind me not to get your family mad, then, Q." James chuckled. 

"Anouk wouldn't curse you, James; she got me started on my contraptions. She'd trigger a rigging to send a kitchen knife hurtling just close enough to your ear for any grown man to piss himself." 

James laughed outright, "Sounds like you." 

"Much more devious; much more clever, but it does bring me some pride to think I turned out, just a bit, like the boy she'd've seen me turn into." Q's breathing stuttered, the slow glide of the ink coming to rest just short of the dimples of muscle in James's lower back. "You would have liked Josephine. She once demonstrated for me how to properly weild a skillet. Apparently, her ex-husband used to tell her that she didn't know how to use one; but she was a damn good swing. She was someone who'd do anything for a friend. Broke my heart to hear that she'd died. I was fifteen at the time, still making the decision between using a pay cheque for food or rent; I couldn't have even dreamed of coming home for the funeral, even if I'd found out in time." 

James tried not to tense under Q's hands; the image of Q young, vulnerable, hungry, and homeless making every protective instinct in him roar. He'd imagined a hundred times over what might've happened, if James had found Q; if he'd known him then. Scenarios in which James could sweep him off the street into a life of luxury in a flat the Naval officer rarely used; where he could go back, and murder the bastards that had made Q's running necessary. He wondered idly what Anouk would say to him asking for Q's hand in marriage--as if he could do something as simple as marry the man he loved, let alone asking for a blessing. Would Q, battered and world-weary and too old for his years, have ever let a stranger like James try to help him? 

If he'd been the one to find Q, James knew that he would not have let him go into MI6. There was too much that James had lost, and losing Q, James would always feel, was not a bloody option. 

"This is good--seeing your past here."

"Makes it a little bit better?" 

James grunted, "Absolutely not. It's a consolation prize that you were happy, once at least. You deserved so much more than temporary happiness. You always will."

Q leaned over his art with great care, pressing his lips to the pulse at the base of Bond's neck, "I have all that now. I just had to be patient; I knew you'd find me."

James shifted carefully, pulling an arm free and requesting Q's hand to hold more than searching for it. Q wrapped their fingers together despite the awkward angle, sighing happily as he did. 

"I'm almost finished." Q finally whispered, as if James could have fallen asleep. James groaned in protest, but released his fingers, going perfectly still under him.

"How long until you're in my arms?" James questioned dryly, as if the answer really didn't matter to him. 

"You have to wait for it to set." The scolding edge to Q's voice made James grunt, but he subsided into being his lover's canvas easily enough. 

"Were you an artistic child?"

Q laughed, and the stutter of air over Bond's shoulder felt good, "Not particularly. I hated the arts until I realized that school wasn't actually a part of it: I didn't need the discipline that they claimed, I could just...be, and let it form around me."

"I'm not sure anything's as bloody complicated as they claimed in school." James snorted. 

Q smiled, making the last, careful stroke over James's waist. "There..."

Q reached for the camera before James could ask, smiling to himself delightedly as he snapped the shot, setting the photo that issued forth aside. 

"I got it, in one try, without stenciling first...You, James," he took another shot, "are my masterpiece."

James let out a huff go disbelieving air, picking up the first picture, the image developing just enough for James to see the shape of it already. "A sun?"

"Yes, James, it is the infernal day-star." Q laughed, "You brought life to the grey monotony of my life. I thought it fitting."

"The design inside..."

"It's a code of a cipher written in computer code. I may not be able to mark you as mine permanently, but as you kept pointing out; this is hardly permanent."

"I would delight in that...Wearing your mark for anyone to see." With a man like James, it was tantamount to a proposal of marriage, and Q took a deep breath to centre himself, closing his eyes pleasurably at the image. 

"Mark me, then, James. Put an image of yours on my skin." 

James shifted carefully, the ink tugging and cracking on his skin as he sat up and turned to look at Q at last, pulling him in by a grip to the back of his neck and licking into his mouth without a care in the world. "Lay on your back." James ordered, voice rough. Q did as he was asked, and the easily sensual way he laid down had James wanting to mark him in a manner of different ways. 

The jut of Q's ribs brought James's blunt fingers, an idea blooming at the sight of Q so open laid out that way. 

~

James returned from a nearly month-long mission wanting nothing more than to be tangled up in Q's limbs in their bed. Unfortunately, with Alec in Buswana, he wasn't about to get what he wanted. 

Q-Branch was a riot of people; Q standing over them all conducting the orchestra of confusion and chaos into a swell of finishing notes, crashing down with a completion of the mission and Alec's cover kept intact by little more than Q's speed and genius. It was like watching a god at work; the scurry of the minions slowing only when Q slumped back, shifting his glasses half-off to rub warily at his eyes. James stopped by the desk of a boffin who'd become something of a second-favorite to Alec and himself, producing a lotus for Jasmine and pinning it into her mess of dreadlocks with a grin. 

"Adorable," James murmured appreciatively before excusing himself to ghost after Q up the stairs to his private office, slipping in just barely before the door closed. Q was tugging off his tie, fingers clumsy with exhaustion, and James was about to say something to make his presence known when he caught sight of the cot Q had so obviously been living on for, if the pile of clothes was anything to go by, a month. 

There was a soft beeping from inside the clothes, and three Rhoombas came at James with all the subtlety of newborn pups: only one of the three capable of flight, but all an ambush nonetheless. "Win!" Q chastised, nearly unbalancing just by turning around, the fatigue in every line of his features. He saw it was James and he seemed to be incapable of speech, opening his arms to the man and sighing shakily when James seized his too-thin body into his own. Q's hands were icy cold, his hair getting to be greasy, and the man felt like nothing more than a skeleton in his arms, but James couldn't bring the scolding to his lips; didn't care to even mention it before getting Q home and in bed. James wondered how the hell Eve had let this happen, let alone Jasmine. 

"Win, tell Jasmine we're going home. I can give Q my equipment there. Hurry."

The door let out a tone as Win tapped into the AI Q had managed to connect the systems, unlocking the door and making it swing open for him to zoom through, the others following on the ground just as desperately.

"What the bloody hell...do you think you're doing to yourself?" James managed, voice rough and throat tight. "Q, this can't happen. I need you--we need you sharp."

"I'm sorry, James." Q murmured, voice muffled into James's chest. "Couldn't sleep without hearing your voice, so I stopped trying."

Loathing the enforced radio silence enough to want to kill something, James took Q out of his office, scowling at any boffin who thought they could stand in his way. Keeping Q wrapped in his arms, James signed out a company car under the proviso of transporting an exec home; completely intending not to give it back until Q had put on at least a stone and James deemed it safe for him to return to work. Win was waiting by the car James had signed out, zooming in after James had gotten Q inside and opened his own door. "I bloody hope you enjoyed time with your cousins, Win, because they may just fall victim when I massacre Q-Branch for allowing this to happen."

"It's not their fault. Jasmine would have broken protocol completely had you not been in so much danger were your cover to be blown. She knew she could keep me on my feet until you got home; it was less of a certainty that she could keep me alive were you to die because I've developed a dependency on talking to you."

James grit his teeth through the urge to call it quits if it would make Q better; he set himself against the old instinct that not getting close to anyone was worth it to not be hurt at all. Q wouldn't be better, and James couldn't do that to himself. "Next time, let her break the bloody cover." He growled finally. "If we have to bloody Morse Code, I will make damn sure that you're okay."

Q didn't reply, reaching onto the gearshift to wrap their fingers together. "I love you. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry about that. If you regret it at all, I don't know--"

"I don't. Couldn't if I wanted to." Q cut him off, voice quiet and sweet. James glanced down at their hands, all but biting his tongue against admitting something before it was time. They needed to get home, and Q needed to get some sleep, before James could do or say anything he'd been daydreaming of for the past month of not having Q's voice in his ear. Sighing to himself wryly, he amended his earlier wish of their bed and Q's tangled limbs. "Win made sure I was being taken care of as much as he could."

A muscle worked in James's jaw, but he didn't reply, pulling smoothly into the small lot that the property came with. James was out of the car and crossed to Q's side almost before Q could undo his seatbelt, seizing Q out of the car and carrying him inside, any protests Q shot out fallen on deaf ears as Win closed Q's door then the front gate behind them. James didn't bother with the lift because any idle waiting was too much at this point. James set him down on the end of the bed, kneeling in front of him to loosen Q's tie the rest of the way, tossing it heedlessly away before he started quickly and efficiently on the buttons of his shirt. 

Q's long fingers caught his hands before the third button, though; a nervous edge creeping into his features. Biting his lip, Q removed James's hands and did it himself, his heartbeat thunking nervously as he slid his shirt off, revealing a piece of art that James looked to have swallowed his tongue at the sight of. 

Q's rib cage, illustrated against his skin in black and grey instead of the deep brown of the henna James had drawn it in, stood against his pale skin, this ink unmistakably permanent. It was perfectly what James had drawn months ago in a small town in the South of France, excepting for one detail. In the safety of the cage, there sat a mechanical heart bursting at the seems with gold like sunlight, and stamped as if the part number was a simple, clearly legible 007. James felt lightheaded, letting out a startled, happy laugh before he crushed Q's lips to his. 

James gave up quickly on being at all subdued in his reaction, grabbing Q off of the end of the bed and into his arms, onto his lap as much as the position would allow, dipping him back like a starlet in the old films. Q let out a startled laugh, clinging to James's shoulders to keep himself even slightly balanced. "I take it you're pleased." Q observed breathlessly, cheeks turning the most delectable shade of pink. 

James just shook his head, eyes clearly communicating how far beyond words he found himself, tucking his face against Q's neck and breathing him in. "Left ring finger." James directed, and let Q wiggle out of his grip enough to look confusedly at his face before directing his gaze to the hand in question, resting low on Q's waist. "Between the finger and pinky." James directed quietly, gaze laying him bare. 

Q's fingertip ghosted over it before his eyes could really report what he saw. It looked like just another of Bond's scars, albeit an odd one. 

It was shaped like the sun, Q realized. A white ink tattoo shaped like the one Q had drawn over James's back. "No way to get the detailing: but enough so that I know I'm yours for a reason."  


End file.
